"These are not my men," she cried. "Where is Indra Sen? Where are the warriors of my guard?"
"They have been dismissed, Fou-tan," replied Bharata Rahon. "The future King of Pnom Dhek will guard his Queen with his own men."
The Princess Fou-tan made no reply as, surrounded by the soldiers of Bharata Rahon, she left the audience chamber and returned to her own apartment, where a new surprise and indignity awaited her. Her slaves and even her ladies-in-waiting had been replaced by women from the palace of Bharata Rahon.
Her case seemed hopeless. Even the high priest, to whom in her extremity she might have turned for succour, would be deaf to her appeal, for he was bound by ties of blood to the house of Bharata Rahon and would be the willing and eager tool of his kinsman.
"There is only one," she murmured to herself, "and he is far away. Perhaps, even, he is dead. Would that I, too, were dead." And then she recalled what Bharata Rahon had said of the great danger that menaced Pnom Dhek, and her breast was torn by conflicting fears, which were lighted by no faintest ray of hope or happiness.
All during the long hours that followed, Fou-tan sought for some plan of escape from her predicament; but at every turn she was thwarted, for when she sought to send a message to Indra Sen, summoning him to her, and to other officials of the palace and the state whom she knew to be friendly to her, she found that she was virtually a prisoner and that no message could be delivered by her except through Bharata Rahon, nor could she leave her apartment without his permission.
She might have melted into tears in her grief and anger, but the Princess of Pnom Dhek was made of sterner stuff. Through the long hours she sat in silence while slaves prepared her for the nuptial ceremony; and when at last the hour arrived, it was no little weeping queen that was escorted through the corridors of the palace toward the great audience chamber where the ceremony was to be performed, but a resentful, angry little queen with steel in her heart and another bit of shining, sharpened steel hidden in the folds of her wedding-gown; and on her lips was a whispered plea to Siva, the Destroyer, to give her strength to plunge the slim blade into the heart of Bharata Rahon or into her own before morning dawned again.
Through the dark forest from the south moved a hundred elephants, their howdahs filled with grim, half-savage warriors. At their head rode Gordon King chafing at the slow pace which the darkness and the dangers of the jungle imposed upon them.
Riding the howdah with King was an officer who knew well the country around Pnom Dhek and he it was who directed the mahout through the night. Presently he caused the elephant to be halted.
"We are nearing Pnom Dhek now," he said, "and are very close to the point upon the trail which you described to me."